


i said, hey what's going on

by daredoll



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sense8 (TV) Fusion, F/M, Gen, Multi, ben + core4 + sea3 cluster !!, ben is the cluster mom, desense8, i'll add pairing as i write them but basically, mal doesn't want anything to do with attachment or feelings, platonic / romantic / aesthetic /a mix !!, they're all in love basically
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-02 03:42:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15788238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daredoll/pseuds/daredoll
Summary: a collection of drabbles set around the sense8 + descendants au that won't leave me alone !





	i said, hey what's going on

His mother’s perfume lingers in the air, probably smudged onto the lapel of his blazer during their last tight hug, Ben proceeding into the TSA check line and later to board his plane back to D.C. He wouldn’t be home again until Thanksgiving, and his latest trip to Boston had------  _ well _ , it had been the usual combination of comforting and stressful that every reunion with his father inevitably became. He had always agreed with Adam before that, the shining example of a boy as righteous as his father, but ever since Ben had turned down Senator Cogsworth’s internship in favor of a more liberal party member, the relationship between father and son has become just the barest it strained. With a tired sigh the young congressional aide presses his temple to the cool glass of the window. The comfort of first-class and even the clouds are little distraction from the piercing migraine wracking his brain. He needs to begin reading the several proposals drafted to Lumiere’s office, start a queue of what constituents’ calls he needs to respond to, begin planning the------  **_God, what didn’t he need to begin planning?_ **

Already he misses his mother, her gentle comfort and tender assurances as needed as her wise insight and steel resolve. ( When Belle tells him she is proud of him he can believe it, see the shine of it in her eyes. His father is not the same. He wonders if he will ever be more than just a naive boy with a bleeding heart to the man he so strives to be like. ) If Adam was the head of the family, his mother was the neck, subtly and unfailing influencing the governor from behind the scenes. The smell of her perfume just serves as a cloying reminder of how far away again she will be.

But suddenly, it isn’t just that familiar scent in the air around him. Acrylic meets his nose, reminding him immediately of grade school art projects and long unsteady strokes of a paintbrush on poster board, Belle behind him with a guiding hand to help with this book report. Another memory meets it, but one he cannot place. The hands that seem to belong to him are  _ not _ his, they are pale and lithe and covered in a plethora of different colors, the brush between slender fingers just as speckled with paint. His (  **_if it is his_ ** ) canvas is a portrait, a boy with eyes like ice and a proud smirk--- now a girl crowned by dark braids interspersed with bits of silver and endless umber eyes--- freckles like constellations and bleached curls--- high cheekbones and hair just escaping a loose bun--- a grin so bright it is blinding and eyes crinkled in mirth--- red lips and eyes flecked with gold--- the faces flicker in and out, all so achingly familiar it literally makes his breath catch until finally his own features settle into place. With a start he blinks harshly, as if to rid himself of this vision that is half his and half someone else’s and entirely too strange.

He isn’t in the air any longer, the stark and battered furnishings of this unfamiliar place certainly nothing like the luxury afforded to him by his parents and their first class ticket. Stumbling back from the center of the room, off balance by the change of scenery and the migraine’s ache finally dulling, hazel eyes stutter about the space until they settle on a figure beside the dingy window with its smudged glass pane. Pale blonde hair, tips dip-dyed a startling lavender, frames skin just as pale and unblemished, full lips curling into an ‘o’ in surprise that he is sure mirrors his own expression, but still all he can focus on are eyes like emeralds--- like the foliage of all those enchanted forests his mother read him before bed as a child. ( Forests that he had dreamed of, with a girl just like this one waiting in the center. Forests that meant adventure and magic. ) His jaw drops, words hover on his lips but fail to come, the orator essentially speechless.

“Putain, comment avez-vous dans mon appartement? Pourquoi diable êtes-vous dans mon appartement? Qui es-tu?” she spits, wonder and fury mingling strangely in Mal’s tone as she immediately jumps to her feet.  _ How the fuck did you get in my apartment? Why the hell are you  _ **_in_ ** _ my apartment?  _ **_Who are you?_ **

But all of a sudden there isn’t room to stand, and she falls back, her calves knocking back against some sort of seat just before she herself lands in it. The air feels tangy with confinement and her ears pop. Her head whirls------ although the splitting headache that had been plaguing it ebbs slightly.

“I’m not in your apartment!” the boy’s voice carries with it an anxious desire to placate, and her head whips to follow the sound, finding the frustratingly familiar face sitting next her, and beyond him a cloud-filled sky. “I’m here,” he explains weakly, lips quirking into an apologetic smile.

_ Plane _ , her mind fills in immediately, though she’s never had the money to afford a ride in one, and never really had reason to, anyway. ( Distantly she wonders if her mother had flown away after she deserted her, but like all ideas concerning Maleficent, Mal is quick to lock away the thought. ) Next her brain latches onto his words.  _ English _ , she can tell, theoretically. She’d never put much stock in her English lessons, preferring instead to doodle in the margins of her textbooks and glare viciously at whatever instructor dared to call on her before they scuttled away to another student. She shouldn’t be able to understand him, and yet---  _ NONE OF THIS MAKES SENSE _ .

Just seconds ago she was at her apartment, gathering her sketch pads and watercolor pencils for another dismal day of pretending to be friendly and bubbly and light to stupid tourists in tacky clothes who wanted her to draw them for pennies. Rent is due the next day and she’s still a hundred euro short. While she doesn’t necessarily want to resort to pickpocketing she knows she has to. ( And besides, the people she steals from always deserve it, anyway. She needs it more than they do. Did their mother abandon them 43 days after their seventeenth birthday, leave them with no income and no savings and no discernible idea of what care was or love was? No. They were happy and dumb shoppers enjoying a trot in the park. ) The frayed upholstery of the cushion she’s balanced on the window ledge to perch on is gone, now replaced by creamy vinyl. She really can’t afford to be daydreaming or hallucinating or tripping balls or whatever the hell this is at a time like this.

But her hackles begin to lower, practically on their own, the more she looks at him, which, actually kind of pisses her off more. At least it would if she could find that rage somewhere within her. Instead she finds her eyes narrowing ever so slightly as she takes in hazel eyes and tawny hair and a sweet grin she has sketched and painted and carved what feels like a million times. 

For years she has had seven faces imprinted into her consciousness, simple doodles always taking the form of these characters she must have imagined. If her mind wanders as she sketches or if she starts a project without a clear ending, Mal is always sure to find one of those faces looking back at her. They aren’t people she recognizes, and after so many drawings of them she’s been forced to just submit to the idea that her mind must have conjured them up and was now too lazy to design any other features. The boy staring back at her is, well, not her favorite, because she doesn’t have favorite anything, refuses to become weak and attached to anything ever again. ( She likes most of them equally actually, though four do shine a bit above the rest. The boy with the lightest eyes she’s ever seen is about the only one she dislikes, his smirk infuriating even when she’s the one drawing it. The girl with braids does irk her, too, in that she can never get her expression just right, and that there’s something about her that just screams “Follow me,” when Mal doesn’t follow anyone. ) Seeing him in the flesh is unsettling, like an imaginary friend became real.  _ This must be a dream _ . “Here?” she repeats quizzically, not scathingly.

“On my way back to D.C.” He answers like it is both the simplest and most confusing thing he’s ever said, and Mal hates that she finds herself endeared to a hallucination so quickly. There’s a charmingly curious look in his eyes as a gentle v forms between his brows. “Who are you?”

“I asked you first.” But his eyes are like a puppy dog’s, if she actually liked dogs ( which, honestly, ok she kind of does but don’t tell anyone ). The artist finds herself crumbling to them. The dragon lady of her arrondissement suddenly as terrifying as an infatuated school girl. “Mal,” she offers with a roll of peridot eyes, an act to seem put upon only half succeeding.

“Ben,” he introduces himself, smile widening to reveal pearly whites that just suit his golden boy appearance. She doesn't like good boys, and yet here she is, fighting a smile of her own. Ben offers his hand to shake, and her eyes dart between it and hazel hues before finally she huffs and gives in. His skin feels electric against hers and then------

The cushion’s fabric is itchy against the skin of her thighs exposed by her shorts and as she blinks she finds her apartment focusing back into view, the dirty dishes abandoned by the sink and the rickety drafting board she has fashioned into an easel. Shaking her head, pale fingers fetch her bag from the sill as she hoists herself down to the floor. Back to reality.

**Author's Note:**

> well, here's our first meeting of two sensates ! let me know what you think in the comments and if there are any specific characters you'd like to meet / interact feel free to request ! i have a few more chapters planned, but i'm so extremely open to suggestion !! thanks for reading !


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